Overheard at Kim's 50th

Kim walked into her 50th birthday party at Le Club and gave a little "Hey, what's up?" shrug. Easy-breezy, maybe because she's been claiming to be 50 for the past two years. Here she is with her mom, Rosemary, who's lovely and gracious — very much like Kim.

Then we did not see Kim for a little while because we went to play tennis. I had a blast getting schooled by Lisa, Kristen, and Tash. We managed to keep Tash on the court for the full hour and a half. Good times.

I felt like a kid in a candy store — or maybe more like a kid at a birthday party — when I saw the smorgasbord of food: pizza, pizza, pizza (seriously, there were so many pizzas, but my favorite was the buffalo chicken one, thank you Scott and Nora), wings, salads, chips, popcorn, candy, cake, and even adorable shortbread cookies shaped like teapots.

I have to give props to Jane C., who not only helped me frost cupcakes but also made the glossy, uniformly shaped chocolate letters. She also carved the little comma, which we included for symmetry as well as grammatical correctness. If only you could see it....

When I asked if Kim would hate having a bunch of candles, Mary said yes. "So we have to do it," she said.

There were so many people and so many conversations, it's hard to sum up. Instead, here are a few things I heard at the party. They are as close to verbatim as I remember; I'm going for "truthiness" here:

"My grandma's 82 and her boyfriend is 55."

"If I were 90, I could see dating someone who's 75."

"Let's get a picture. Tash? Tash! Put down the food."

"You cannot quote The Wire."

"I didn't know we were doing candles. That's why I ate the P."
Kim: "Why didn't you just eat the rest and ruin my 'birthday'?"

"We didn't get schooled on the court. We got spanked."

"You don't have any compassion now that you're 50?"

It was tennis and dinner and pretzel M&Ms with lots of fun people. It is only through tennis that I get to go to parties on Monday nights — a beautiful thing.

So thank you, Rebekah, Mary, and Glenna for throwing a great bash. Kim, you too. We couldn't have done it without you!

Cupcakes and earrings

It has been a crazy week.

We're designing for 365 Earrings — the math of which works out to 90 or so per editor. I just finished designing mine! This afternoon will be spent writing the story.

And recovering from the carb-laden snacks and lunch I've had today. Cathy organized a cake walk to benefit the United Way, and everyone at Team Bead Style baked cupcakes. Which also meant that everyone at Team Bead Style ATE cupcakes.

Yellow cake with cocoa frosting, carrot and red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and chocolate with white chocolate frosting. All in the past two days.

Plus I had a bagel with cream cheese for my morning snack. And this for lunch: crackers and cheese, chips and dip, Chex mix, Helene's homemade baklava, plus a brownie for some color and antioxidants.

All of this carb production is for a good cause, though. I also learned something new this week: I am not good at making chocolate letters. Why did I choose a serif font?! Plus, Keith's birthday is not even until next week.

So this may not be a time of learning new skills, but of simply getting the job done. TGIF....

To add to the manic atmosphere, Pops has been acting out lately. She dumped the kitchen garbage and ate a burned blueberry chocolate chip pancake and the top of this carton of buttermilk. Too many carbs for her too?